French Jet Skier Killed by Algerian Coast Guard Laid to Rest in Morocco

More than fifty people from Clichy made the trip to Morocco to attend Bilal’s funeral, in the village of Bni Drar, near Oujda, reports Fadila*, a very close family friend from Oujda, contacted by telephone by Le Parisien. "It was very sad. Bilal’s wife is so shocked that she no longer speaks. His mother is devastated," she adds, who knew the childhood friend of her son in Seine-Saint-Denis. "They were always together. Bilal was more than family. He was like a brother," she regrets. "He was very kind to everyone: the neighbors, the people at the market, his family. [...] He was his mother’s darling. He took care of her, especially since the death of his father a few months ago," specifies Rajae*, Fadila’s daughter, also contacted by telephone.

It was a tradition for Bilal to go on vacation to Morocco, his country of origin. "Every year, Bilal went on vacation with his family to Morocco, to Oujda (a town bordering Algeria), where they have a large house. He never had any problems there," Fadila slips. She is still in shock. "Before going jet skiing, he was having fun with his friends, he was happy. He kissed his two daughters, aged two months and a year and a half. To take five bullets while you’re having fun, it’s not normal," denounces the mother.

After the announcement of Bilal’s disappearance, Fadila and her daughter mobilized to help his family in the search. "My brother was with them on vacation. He calls me at three in the morning (in the night from Tuesday, August 29 to Wednesday) to tell me that the Moroccan navy had found his jet ski," Rajae rewinds. The next morning, we called the Algerian navy. No one knew about this disappearance, but they still took down our names. It was surprising." Their call for witnesses on social media to ask Algerians for help in their search in Marsa Ben M’Hidi, the Algerian border town, also proved fruitless. "But it didn’t work. There were too many incoherent stories, too many rumors, it gave the family too much hope," sighs Rajae.

On Wednesday, Bilal’s body was recovered on the Moroccan coast, on the beach of Saïdia, a very popular summer resort. According to the testimony of Mohamed Qissi, his elder brother, they were four young people - three Franco-Moroccans and one Moroccan - each on a jet ski on the Moroccan coast. "We got lost, but we kept going until we found ourselves in Algeria. We knew we were in Algeria because a black Algerian zodiac came towards us, it started zigzagging as if they wanted to run us over. [...] They (the occupants of the zodiac) shot at us. Thank God, I wasn’t hit but my brother and my friend, they killed them. They arrested my other friend," he recounted. This other friend is named Smaïl Snabé, also Franco-Moroccan.

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